‘Dungeons & Dragons’ creator’s unpublished work to become video games

By Steven Petite April 18, 2018

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax died in 2008, but he left behind numerous unpublished works that may become video games. The Gygax Trust has partnered with crowdfunding platform Fig to find developers who are right for the projects, raise the necessary funds to complete them, and share Gygax’s previously unseen creations with the world.

The unpublished works in question are more than four decades old, as they are said to have inspired the creation of the beloved tabletop game Dungeons & Dragons.

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“The worlds and characters to be discovered in my husband’s unpublished intellectual property are an incredibly important part of his legacy,” said Gail Gygax, Gary’s widow, in a press release. “Therefore, it was paramount that we partner with an advanced and innovative platform such as Fig that gave us complete control of his creative vision.”

As part of that creative control, Alex Gygax, the youngest son of Gary, will serve as CEO of Gygax Games, which has been dormant in recent years.

“As a gamer, I wanted to bring my father’s works to life in a medium that I enjoy. I’m looking forward to working with talented developers who love my father’s work as much as I do,” Alex said.

In an interview with Polygon, Alex expounded upon what to expect from these unreleased works:

“One of the major ones that everyone knows about is his personal dungeon. It was his personal D&D campaign that he had never released to the public. He didn’t want his game nights being destroyed by publishing his work and then having his group go out and buy it and find out all of his secrets. So that’s one of the main things that we have to use, and all the little side derivatives of that.”

The worldwide search for developers who can bring Gary’s works to realization as video games begins now.

“Any developer who wants to propose something, get it in through pitches@fig.co and we’ll review it with our green light committee and with Alex to make sure that it’s a good fit. Once Alex is able to get the Gygax Games website up, that will be another avenue for submissions,” Fig CEO Justin Bailey said.

Founded in 2015, Fig has been home to successful crowdfunding campaigns for numerous high-profile games including Pillars of Eternity 2 and Psychonauts 2.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Steven is a writer from Northeast Ohio currently based in Louisiana. He writes about video games and books, and consumes…

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